Owners want a lot more for their money than success on the field

Abu Dhabi's royal family paid a lot of money for Manchester City but it expects to get a lot back in return, mostly in ways that cannot be measured in mere cash.

The £210m investment is supposed to buy a top finish in the Premiership and then the Champions League, where the real money is made. It could also buy a seat at the top table in the new world of diplomacy - where, pound for pound, the soft power of football can outpunch gunboats or armies.

The new emissaries, the players, can achieve things diplomats can only dream of - flying the flag and winning recognition, even adoration, from millions of foreigners. Nothing could be more conducive to clinching trade and investment deals.

Ten times more people watch Premier League football on television in China than in Britain, and in the remotest villages where the locals speak hardly a word of English, they usually know how to say Manchester United. The emirs of Abu Dhabi hope they will be able to manage the word City.

On planet football the US is no more than a developing country. England is the true superpower. The Premier League is the richest and best loved of all the world's football leagues, a global super-brand. The big money and the best players may be foreign, but they play on English soil in front of mostly English crowds. Gordon Brown has tried to press this advantage. He calls it "England's secret diplomatic weapon" and his forays abroad have often been wrapped in football paraphernalia. When he visited Shanghai as chancellor three years ago he latched on to the fact that the city was twinned with Liverpool and took with him Liverpool and Everton kits.

Britain is not alone in using football as diplomatic currency. Armenia's president, Serge Sarkisian, has invited his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, to a 2010 World Cup qualifier today to break the ice between the two countries.

Australia's decision to switch from the Oceania World Cup qualifying group to the Asian Football Confederation was taken largely to raise the country's image in the emerging economies of the east.

Individuals can play the game as well. Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea not only as an expensive plaything. The purchase also stitched him into the fabric of British (and global) sporting life to the extent that it could make him untouchable if the tides turn against him in Moscow.

For the princes of Abu Dhabi, the advantages are both personal and diplomatic. According to Mamoun Fandy, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, it is about keeping up with Dubai, Abu Dhabi's greatest rival among the seven statelets of the United Arab Emirates.

"There is a general feeling in the Emirates that Dubai has become the brand name for the country, while Abu Dhabi - though the capital and largest emirate - is receding in the background. The whole plan is putting Abu Dhabi back on the map," Fandy said.